Fellow Travellers
by Morgan72uk
Summary: And isn’t it easier to think in abstract terms, to think about ‘the patient’ rather than someone you actually know?
1. Chapter 1

Title: Fellow Travellers

Author: Morgan72uk

Summary: House picks a very bad to walk out on clinic duty

Pairing: Not so much - but a House / Wilson / Cuddy piece

Rating: T (for injuries and some swearing)

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, please don't sue

A/N - Gosh - I haven't done this for the longest time. So, anyway - I like the ducklings but there is just something about House / Wilson / Cuddy that calls to me. My, but you could make a lot of mess between the 3 of them.

Also, this is my first posting on this site - I've read the guidelines very carefully - but still... Keep your fingers crossed that I understand this. There is another part - which I have written and hope to work out how to post. I was going for a dramatic pause.

**Fellow travellers**

You throw the ball, you catch the ball. You throw the ball, you catch the ball. Over and over, in an endlessly repeating cycle. Normally the rhythm helps you to think, frees your mind to roam through exotic and esoteric possibilities – to make connections. Exactly the type of thought processes you are currently trying to escape. Trying and failing to escape, you remind yourself bitterly.

Guilt. Not an emotion you are overly familiar with. You care little about the effect you have on others and so, are seldom troubled by remorse. By isolating yourself from human contact and relationships you believe you can avoid being hurt and that much at least is still true. But what you can no longer pretend is that you have done no harm.

This isn't one of those times when your treatment has caused someone to get worse, not one of the many occasions when you've had to rule something out on the way to making someone better. This time you haven't recommended a dangerous treatment on the outside chance that it might save a life. Your brilliant diagnostic skills aren't needed right now, the diagnosis is all too clear – punctured lung, multiple lacerations and severe blood loss. Only the prognosis remains in doubt.

You did nothing – except cause the problem in the first place. Other Doctors stabilised the patient, performed emergency surgery – you weren't there. You didn't even know until it was far too late. And isn't it easier to think in abstract terms, to think about 'the patient' rather than someone you actually know?

It is just so senseless, a classic case of someone in the wrong place at the wrong time; something that should never have happened. It would never have happened, the mocking voice in your head reminds you, if you'd been paying attention, if you hadn't been so intent on avoiding your obligations, of getting out of clinic duty.

You saw the guy in the waiting room as you arrived, automatically noted the sweats, the fidgeting, put two and two together – and then promptly forgot all about it. The clinic was unusually irritating this morning and the wet weather always aggravates the pain in your leg. You didn't want to be there and after four, pointless consultations, you decided you weren't staying.

Predictably Cuddy caught you on the way out of the door, tried to force you to go back. You ran right over her arguments with all of your usual ferocity, calling into question her professionalism and, just for fun, throwing in a quip about her weight. You noticed the guy again, noted that he seemed more edgy than ever; concluded he was definitely an addict looking to get drugs. But it wasn't your problem, you just wanted out of there and you couldn't care less about what Cuddy did to cover your absence. Except of course, what the incredibly busy Dean of Medicine did, was cover the remainder of your shift herself.

When they found her she was lying in a pool of blood, the exam room was wrecked, the drug cabinet broken open and there was no sign of her patient. She'd fallen inches away from the emergency alarm. Hours later Lisa Cuddy remains a hair's breadth away from dying in her own hospital – and despite an over-powering desire to find someone else to blame, you are forced to admit that it is all your fault.

You should have said something, should have warned her, even if you had to blow off clinic duty, your parting shot should have been to tell her that you thought the guy was on the edge. But you didn't. You catch the ball and slam your hand down hard on the desk. 'Damn it!'

She treated you, did her job – and you cursed her for it; because it cost you the use of the leg, because Stacy betrayed you, because she was the one still in range. Every day you punish her for the pain, for being the one to find you a way back, for offering you one of the few things you give a damn about.

You think that if God exists and happens to have a particularly sick sense of humour then she would have fallen ill with all kinds of bizarre symptoms. Symptoms only you can find the answer to. So, you would come to hold in your hands the life of the woman you enjoy viewing as the cause your many daily irritations. And then you'd save her, obviously – and neither of you would ever forget it. But, there is no God, you haven't saved her and only one of you might live to remember that.

Wilson walks into the office and drops wearily into the nearest chair. He looks as though he's aged 5 years in the last few hours, but if he's here it means he has news. He is the only person you can face hearing this from – something you are fairly sure that he knows.

'She's stable, the lung is OK, vitals look good and she should regain consciousness in a couple of hours.'

'The eye?'

'They saved it. But the lacerations are pretty bad. There will be scars, she'll need surgery – but obviously not for a while.'

'A permanent reminder.'

'Give her a couple of weeks and she'll be back on her feet, yelling at you for skipping clinic duty.' You recognise what he is trying to do and you are grateful to him for trying, or perhaps he needs to believe that too.

'She was attacked in her own hospital – you know how attached she is to this place, you think she's ever going to feel safe here again?' It is no surprise that Wilson doesn't have an answer to this, the thought that Cuddy might not feel the same way about 'her' hospital when she wakes up isn't something either of you want to dwell upon.

'This isn't your fault.'

'Of course not. She was covering my shift when she was stabbed, several times, by a man I had already worked out was a junkie looking to score. How could that possibly have anything to do with me?'

'Did you know he was violent? That he was going to attack someone?'

'I should have known.' You pick up the ball and start to throw it again.

'You think she wouldn't have made the same diagnosis as you did? She's a good Doctor – she's not a fool. If you'd have stayed you would have taken him into the exam room – and he'd have attacked you instead – and knowing what he wanted wouldn't have made any difference to that.'

This isn't something you want to hear – even though he may be right. The point is the only reason Cuddy was in that room was because you weren't. 'How many times do you think she's defended me, taken heat for me, kept me out of trouble?'

'What time period are we talking about?' The quip falls flat and Wilson tries again, 'look, it's you and Cuddy, you fight with her, about most things, she fights for you. No one really understands why, but we assume it's a twisted, competitive sort of thing – and it works.' Responding to that is just too complicated and you sit in gloomy silence until finally Wilson rouses himself to say,

'She asked for you.'

'What?'

'Before she went into surgery, she was conscious for a couple of minutes, but it was definitely you she wanted to see.'

'No.' You speak the word, hear and feel its resonance, assume your meaning is clear – but Wilson knows you too well to be easily daunted.

'She's lying in a hospital bed, she doesn't deserve a visit?'

'And what do you suggest I say to her? "Hey Cuddy, hope you're feeling better, sorry about the scars – but I guess we're even now?"' There is no reply, Wilson simply gets up and walks out of the room – and who can blame him?


	2. Chapter 2

**Fellow Travellers – part 2**

Midnight. The hospital's sounds are muted, subdued; because it's late, because most visitors have left for the day and because a woman, who it turns out, has a surprising influence over the mood of the building is still unconscious.

You went home, but when it became clear you weren't going to be able to settle, you came back. Not because you expect to find peace here, you have long since given up expecting to find peace at all, but because there is nowhere else to go. Now, you are lingering in corridors, avoiding people, feeling like an interloper, yet still heading inexorably closer to her room. You want to believe that you are going to be able to stay outside, be satisfied with looking at her through the glass. But you know that when it comes to it you will want to know for sure that she is recovering – because, after all, most of her Doctors are idiots.

You take great pleasure in taunting her, defying her authority and ignoring the limits she attempts to impose on you. You like to believe you don't like her, that you aren't friends – but this is just another of the many lies you tell yourself. The truth is, things between the two of you are more complex than that and you couldn't categorise the relationship you have, even if you were inclined to try.

Her chart is in the room – to reach it, to actually check on her you are going to have to go inside. You realise there is no chance of doing that without being seen. There are a lot of people around who you are sure will all enjoy gossiping about this visit. It is the kind of situation that would have you throwing in a joke about sex, the non-existent affair the two of you are having. It is the kind of situation you would relish – normally.

As you glance at the readings it occurs to you that it is odd that there is no one else here, no friends or family sitting by her bedside waiting for her to wake up. It doesn't seem right that her only companion is a crippled colleague, driven by remorse, who has taken over 6 hours to get here and who might still bolt at the drop of a hat. But perhaps this is how she wants it.

The chart is informative – but it doesn't tell you the whole story. It tells you nothing about those first, chaotic moments. Of Foreman abandoning a patient to rush to her aid, of his urgent efforts to stabilise her, efforts that left him with a lab coat drenched in blood – which he discarded in disgust as soon as she was whisked away to the OR. There is nothing written down about Wilson sprinting along hospital corridors to reach her, to hold her hand for a few moments; or of people standing together in small groups, speaking in hushed tones, numb with shock – as though too much noise would somehow add to her injuries. You piece together these details through snippets of over-heard conversations, adding them to the tide of shock that had eventually found even you, lapping at your feet like an in-coming tide.

'House?' her voice sounds far more fragile than usual.

'Yeah.'

'Oh God, this has to be hell.' As an opening remark it isn't too promising, but there is just something so – Cuddy-like about the statement that you concentrate on the relief you feel and decide to ignore everything else.

'You're right – for you hell is this hospital and me as your Doctor.' At her horrified expression you add, 'relax - I have absolutely nothing to do with your treatment. You might want to send Foreman a nice note though – poor guy pretty much saved your life.'

'I'm sure you'll thank him enough for both of us. How am I doing?'

'Don't you want me to let the gaggle of anxious Doctors out there know Mom's awake?' She brushes aside the question, making you wonder if she somehow believes that if there is bad news to be delivered, you will do it with a modicum of brutality – no sugar coating from Dr House.

'No, I want you to tell me how I'm doing.'

'You're recovering nicely – a model patient in fact.' You watch as she processes that, and then you take pity on her and hand her the chart so she can see for herself.

'My eye?'

'Not as bad as they thought at first, you won't lose it – but some of the lacerations are pretty severe – including the facial ones.'

'There'll be scars,' she says, handing you the chart back.

'Its too early to tell, but I'm reliably informed that this hospital has some very good plastic surgeons. I'm sure they'll all dying to operate on you.'

'It doesn't matter,' You open your mouth to argue, but the words elude you. And perhaps this isn't the moment to point out that, despite all the time you spend deliberately not looking at her face, her eyes are easily her most expressive and arresting feature; or even that you have ever noticed such a thing. You aren't used to seeing her like this, aren't used to the stillness, to the vulnerability, to the feeling that if you say the wrong thing you might just shatter her into so many pieces no one will be able to put her back together again.

'I'm pretty sure it does matter – don't scare the plastic surgeons away, OK? I know

they aren't the kind of people you would normally enjoy spending time with – but not hearing what they have to say would be stupid – and however much of a pain in the butt you are – I know you aren't stupid.' When she doesn't reply you know that you have lost her. 'Well, this has been pleasant – but since you aren't at death's door there's really no need for me to be here.' As you hoped the deliberate cruelty of your words force a response from her.

'Hoping I might not make it?'

'I had the party all planned.'

'Sorry to disappoint you.'

'I thought that was what you lived for?'

You wince at the unintentional meaning of the words but you don't look back as you take a couple of steps to the door and that is why you almost don't hear her whisper,

'Stay?'

'I don't know Cuddy – people will talk; I wouldn't want anyone to think I like you.'

'Believe me, no one is in danger of thinking that. I could use the company.' You nod and, sighing heavily as though it is an enormous favour, settle in the chair beside her bed.

'Well, if you insist. So – can we watch TV?'

'I'd rather be dead.' You don't point out that a couple of hours ago she almost was – but the words are there between you, like loaded missiles.

'Oh come on. The Comedy Channel is re-running Friends – actually its always re-running Friends – but that's not the point.'

'There's a point?'

'I'm sorry.' You've been working up to this since she woke up and both of you know it. You are interested to see how she will react to your apology, to the amount of power you have given her– after all its not as though she doesn't already have too much power over you.

But when, after a long, tortuous silence she says, 'OK' as though that is it, you can't quite believe she is letting you off the hook so easily. You start to object but when you look at her she is watching you out of the one eye that is not swathed in dressings and her expression is carefully neutral. That is when you realise that you are not the only one who is afraid to confront guilt and what it might mean. You have to applaud her attempt at bravery, her determination not to add to your demons, even if it is ultimately a strategy that can not hope to succeed. But you don't know too many people who would even have the nerve to try and it is because of this that you are finally willing to admit that you admire her.

You seldom touch people, not just patients, although you have a particular antipathy for touching them, but people in general. You also know you have a penchant for the grand gesture – although other people don't put it so kindly. So, both of you are surprised when you reach out and take her hand, letting the warmth seep from you into her. You are giving her something to hold onto – even though it is clear she is desperate not to admit she might need such a thing. Yet, after a moment, her fingers curl around yours.

'Tell me about the hospital,' she says at last. You aren't surprised by the choice of subject – because she is more like you than either of you want to admit. If you have solving mysteries as the thing that matters to you, then she has a sprawling hospital with a permanent hole in its finances. And who are you to say whether this is a good or a bad thing?

'I'm going to tell you about a patient Chase admitted last week – I'm actually surprised you haven't heard about this already - the complaint must be taking longer to get here than I thought.' You start to talk, describing scenes, winding stories together, bringing characters to life with vivid descriptions and some wicked imitations. You pause only when Wilson steps into the room, but he nods at you to go on, pulls up a chair and joins in the telling of the story, adding a few laconic asides of his own.

You watch her, out of the corner of your eye, see her relax and finally give in to the insistent pull of sleep. Cuddy will make it, you decide, probably to spite you – and she won't hold this over your head, won't wield it as a weapon in your frequent disputes. Which makes her a better person than you.

Wilson is sleeping too – stretched out in his chair; you could sneak away, leave them – but you won't. You pop a vicodin and wait for the pain in your leg to even out. Something tugs at you, something that is almost contentment – and then you remember that you are a screwed up son of a bitch and that if this is contentment you are in a worse state than you thought. But, actually, if you are, at least you aren't the only one – and sometimes to be among fellow travellers is all we can ask for.

The End


End file.
